Robert Richter

Biography

Robert Richter was a German optical designer whose career centered on photographic, projection, and aerial-survey optics. At Zeiss he developed the Topogon, a compact symmetrical wide-angle lens offering a 90-degree field with unusually low distortion. Introduced in 1933, it became an important foundation for photogrammetric and aerial-camera objectives and influenced later families of highly corrected symmetrical wide-angle lenses.

Sources: ZEISS — History of camera and cine lenses · Photogrammetric Engineering — Development and Perfection of the Topogon Lens

Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung(1)